When I spent some time looking for Wall Street jobs through headhunters, I tried for a while with the standard technique of molding myself to what employers are looking for. This didn't work very well. The big problem is that it turns the job hunting process into a reality game show, and this was not particularly pleasant, and more importantly something that I was not good at. (My math and programming skills aren't horrible, but in a group of 100 Ph.D.'s, I'm just not going be the top 25% in the ability to solve math puzzles quickly. I may rank in the top 25% in the ability to talk about mid-Qing Chinese history.)

So let's change the process a bit. I'll just state what I want. All of this is negotiable, but it requires an employer that be willing to negotiate these issues rather than just specify take it or leave it.

What I can do for you

* I can crunch partial differential equations using finite difference and finite volumes methods.

* I can read Chinese.

* I can manage small teams.

Very firm items

1) The job has have some long term connection with China even if a short term connection is not immediately obvious. For example, I'd be very happy to take a job as a front desk quant since it gives me more experience which I can use later in understanding Chinese markets, but this will work only if the employer agrees to let me use company time to study Chinese securities and pegs me as someone that will be useful in the future.

2) I don't want to permanently relocate to NYC. I just don't. Now a lot of this can be worked out. I'd be very happy to work in NYC M-F and return to Austin in the weekends, and there are about 100 different ways of solving this problem, but again it requires the employer be willing to negotiate.

Less firm items

3) I like to talk on the internet. Of course, I'm going to reveal secret or proprietary information, but most Wall Street firms have an overexpansive and paranoid definition of what is proprietary which is self-defeating. I'm perfectly willing to promise not to reveal any client or internal information, however if the definition of secrecy extends to things like general comments on the economy or my view of the world, this is going to require some $$$ to compensate for my inconvenience.

4) I like to work on open source software. The problem with working on proprietary systems is that the employer can take my work away from me. Also open source software allows one to tap into the combined knowledge of most of the internet. More eyes = better code. Again, I can and have worked on proprietary software before and I'm willing to do it for $$$$.

5) I want to work reasonable hours. By reasonable I mean normally 50-60 hour weeks with weekends free with rare occasions where things go crazy. Along with a cargo cult of secrecy there is a cargo cult of overwork which like the cult of secrecy is actually counter-productive.

What makes me happy

* Appeal to my desire to change things and do creative and innovative stuff. Lots of companies like to claim that they are creative and innovative, but most merely talk the talk but do not walk the walk. (Incidentally, I am aware of the need for management process and someone to say "no" in order to prevent things from devolving into total chaos.)

* Appeal to my intellectual masochism. The two interviews for a large investment bank that I had that convinced my that I wanted to do quant-related work were the two most unsuccessful interviews that I ever had. I was confronted with programming and math equations that I simply died at doing. It was really quite fun. The reason it was fun was because they were questions I couldn't answer then, but it was within my ability to answer those questions with some study.

Dealbreakers

* My SAT scores were 790 (math) 730 (verbal). My undergraduate GPA at MIT was 3.2 out of 4.0. If you care about this, I don't want to work for you, since it means that we have inreconcilable differences about the importance of this information.

Personal Preferences (details in TWikiVariables)

• • Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = JosephWang